Mail Run participants posing for the camera before heading off/NPS

Take a ride on New Year's Day when the annual "Mail Ride" is held at Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area on the Kentucky-Tennessee border for mountain bikers.

Every New Year’s Day, the Big South Fork Bike Club invites all mountain bikers to ride the Big South Fork. Bikers meet at Bandy Creek Visitor Center at 10 a.m. (ET), January 1, and then hit the trails.

The ride is traditionally called the Mail Run because ‘neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of the night’ keep us from getting out there on the first of the year,” said Joe Cross, president of the Big South Fork Bike Club.

The Mail Run consists of a choice of rides varying anywhere from 8 to 35 miles so bikers can pick the group ride of a length they are most comfortable with. Hot chocolate and coffee will be available at Bandy Creek Visitor Center before the rides start.

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area has almost 300 miles of trails that allow mountain biking and, in 2012, was the first national park in the nation to receive the International Mountain Biking Association’s elite Epic Ride designation, which draws numerous new (and returning) mountain bikers to this part of the country.

For more information on the Mail Run and mountain biking at Big South Fork, visit this page.